


Ebenezer S. Snell 



ADDRESSES 



AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE 



Amherst College Alumni, 



COMMEMORATIVE OF THE LATE 



I^'iFLOFESSO^^ SUSTEXjILj, 



Wednesday, June 27, 18T7, 



BT 

REV. DANIEL W. POOR, 

AND 

PROF. WILLIAM C. ESTY. 



SPRINGFIELD, MASS.: 

CLARK W. BRYAN & COMPANY, PRINTERS. 

1877. 



Ebenezer S. Snell 



ADDRESSES 



AT THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE 



Amherst Collepe Alumni, 



COMMEMORATIVE OF THE LATE 



X=I=LOFESSOI=L SISTEX-jIj, 



Wednesday, June 2T, 1877 



BY 

REV. DANIEL W. POOR, 

AND 

PROF. WILLIAM C. ESTY. 



SPRINGFIELD, MASS.: 

CLABK W. BRYAN & COMPANY, PRINTERS. 

1877. 



la 9Xf^9n<rr 






MAY 2 4 191«^ 



Rev. Dr. Poor s Address. 



Mr. President and Fellow Alumni of Amherst Col- 
lege, Ladies and Gentlemen : 

The call of the hour is to pay our tribute of affec- 
tionate and admiring remembrance to one whom we 
have all known and loved, under wliose 'mstruction 
we the alumni have all sat, who leads our long line 
as the first student admitted inlS' j^mherst College, 
and who, after fifty-one years of faithful service to 
his Alma Mater, has at length gone to his reward, 
followed only by the pleasant recollections, sincere 
respect and tender regards of all who have had the 
happiness of his acquaintance — Ebenezee Stkong 
Snell. a rare thing is it to see a person who has 
given the whole of a long and laborious life towards 
building up the institution that has reared him ; but 
to begin one's career with the very existence of this 
institution, and thenceforward to identify himself 
with all its interests, to evince under the adverse cir- 
cumstances which ever attend the founding of literary 
institutions, the character and scholarship, which, at 



the end of the third year of his graduation, warranted 
his being appointed Tutor, and from that moment on 
to consecrate himself as by a religious vow to its 
advancement, growing with its growth, ministering to 
and receiving from it strength and fame, sharing in 
its struggles with unrepining self-denial — never falter- 
ing in his devotion, even through protracted gloom 
and death-like darkness, and living on to see it emerge 
into assured triumph over all difficulties and all oppo- 
sition, and to welcome to its festive entertainments 
the alumni of fifty-six classes, with all of whom he 
had been personally acquainted — this is the dis- 
tinguishing honor which belongs to Professor Snell 
alone, among all we have known or read o£ And 
how much does the mere fact thus sketched invite 
toward him special consideration at the very start. 
We cannot disparage its significance by ascribing it 
wholly to the mere accident of the time and place 
which the Professor happened to occupy. It can be 
accounted for only by the possession of sterling quali- 
ties not ordinarily found, and which force themselves 
on our notice the more, when we take into account 
the singular vicissitudes through which the College 
has passed. Mighty convulsions have shaken it to 
its foundations ; but though they shook others out of 
place, they never disturbed him. In devising what 
could be done to make the College firmer — more 
popular — more effective, no patron ever thought of 
displacing the Professor of Mathematics and Natural 



Philosophy ; amid all the shakings he was one of the 
things that could not be shaken ; and so he remained, 
remained on and on, until all physical vitality was 
suddenly exhausted, and he dropped at his post, im- 
plements in hand. We say then that Professor Snell 
presents himself before us in advance by the simple, 
obvious facts of his history as a no ordinary man. Let 
us then look at him a little more closely. Our part 
it will be, within the half hour allotted us, simply to 
note the main features of his history and character, 
as they were presented for ordinary observation. The 
estimate of his intellectual abilities and scientific 
attainments and labors, will be left to the more com- 
petent Professor who follows us. 

Professor Snell was born in North Brookfield, on 
the 7th of October, 1801, the eldest in a family of 
ten children. Thus, both in the century and in the 
household, no less than in the College it seems to 
have been his fate to be at the be^nino- of thino;s. 
One of his playful boasts was that he was born in the 
year one. His father was the Rev. Thomas Snell, 
D. D., pastor of the Congregational Church of North 
Brookfield for nearly sixty-four years. Although a 
trustee of Williams College, he was among the fore- 
most to advocate the foundation of a College at Am- 
herst, acting at first in the hope that the former 
institution would be transferred to the place of the 
latter. We remember seeing him in our early days, 
a clergyman of the old school, dignified and sedate, 



yet benign and kindly, held in high repute for his 
sound judgment, and for the sterling qualities of his 
mind and heart, eminently successful in his office — a 
fit type of what ministers were in the days of our 
fathers, when settlements were for life, and the title. 
Pastor, had a meaning. His wife was Tirzah Strong, 
a relative of Dr. Nathan Strong of Hartford, and for 
some time an inmate of his family. She was a wo- 
man of "peculiar mildness and affection," and proved 
his fit and faithful consort through nearly the whole 
of his long life. 

Under these parents Ebenezer enjoyed a thoroughly 
religious training, a " blessing which," as he testifies 
in a brief autobiography, " can never be too highly 
valued," and one involving " no ordinary responsibil- 
ity." He confesses to its having shaped his whole 
future, though he made no profession of faith until 
his 28th year, when, with his newly married wife, he 
joined the College church, March 1, 1829. 

Under his father he, also, fitted for college. But 
since it was his purpose to enter as Sophomore, he 
spent one term at Amherst Academy for the sake of 
pursuing some studies here, that belonged to the 
Freshman grade. In the autumn of 1819, at the age 
of eighteen, he was matriculated at Williams College,, 
then under the Presidency of Dr. Z. S. Moore. Of 
his scholarship some estimate may be formed from 
the fact that he was appointed the Latin Oration at 
the Junior Exhibition. At Williams he remained 



two years. During this period the debate waxed 
hot, and came to its crisis about the expediency of 
removing the little institution then hid away in the 
mountains of Berkshire, into the more level and 
accessible regions of Hampshire, where it would have 
room to grow. On this question, no doubt, the views 
of Doctor Snell influenced those of his son. Accord- 
ingly, when the Legislature forbade the transfer, and 
President Moore and others, nevertheless, adhered to 
their conviction of its propriety, and left Williams- 
town to found a college here, Ebenezer followed him 
with seventeen others, and having been already ex- 
amined before leaving, was the first to be admitted 
into the new College as Senior on September 19th, 
1821 ; and for a whole day he enjoyed the honor of 
being its sole student. "Pindar Field was the only 
classmate who accompanied him;" and these two 
constituted the whole class, save for a short inter- 
val, when they were joined by Ezra Fairchild of New 
Jersey, who however was not graduated. Alexan- 
drians will be pleased to know that young Snell was 
appointed to call off the names in order of those who 
were to constitute their society, and was elected its 
first President. And here again he is at the head. 

It is a noteworthy indication of the many draw- 
backs, against which Professor Snell achieved his 
education, that the winter of his Senior year was 
spent in teaching, first at North Brookfield, and then 
at Amherst Academy, as assistant to the Preceptor, 



Mr. Clapp. He was one of those who choose to work 
their way through Ufe ; and he refused to be indebted 
even to his father for the costs of his college course. 
What he did not earn he borrowed, and paid after- 
ward. Such was the stuff of the man early developed. 
Beneath his slender form and retiring mien there 
wrought a resolute spirit, which was disciplining itself 
for the earnest work of after years. 

In August, 1822, at the age of twenty-one, Mr. Snell 
was graduated— if graduation it may be called when 
no degree could be conferred — and at the commence- 
ment he delivered " the Salutatory," which was the 
highest appointment given. "It was not thought best," 
he writes, " to have a formal valedictory." And why 
not ? we may ask. Was it in Providential anticipa- 
tion of the fact that he was destined not to leave 
Amherst at all, but to abide here in constant service, 
until he should be called to go up higher? In a 
divinely ordered life, seeming chances turn to proph- 
ecies, and this appears like one. The degree of A. B., 
now held in reserve on the simple testimonial of 
worthiness, was conferred in 1825, when the college 
charter won from the Legislature after a hard struggle, 
was received by college and town in a blaze of festive 
illumination. 

For the next three years Mr. Snell was teacher in 
Amherst Academy — which then held the future col- 
lege, as it were, in its swelling calyx — first as assist- 
ant until 1824, then as principal for seven months 



after. In these positions he evinced such abilities 
that at the close of the summer, August 22, 1825, at 
the first annual meeting of the Board of Trustees 
under the charter, when the government of the col- 
lege was regularly organized, and among other things 
the salaries of the officers were determined, he was 
chosen Tutor with a salary of |400. His old friend, 
President Moore, had now gone to his rest, and Dr. 
Heman Humphrey filled his seat ; at the same time 
Rev. Edward Hitchcock was elected Professor of 
Chemistry and Natural History, and Mr. Jacob Ab-. 
bott, Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philoso- 
phy ; Rev. N. W. Fiske held the chair of Greek Lan- 
sruao-e and Literature and Belles Lettres ; Rev. S. 
Peck, D. D., that of Latin and Hebrew; and Rev. S. 
M. Worcester that of Rhetoric and Oratory and 
English Literature. Tutor Snell's business, it seems, 
was to act the part of general assistant to all these 
professors when need be, but especially to teach in 
Mathematics. At this time the students numbered 
140. To the original Old South College there had 
been added the so-called Middle of my day without 
as yet the Chapel between. Thus appointed and 
endowed and associated, Mr. Snell entered on that 
career which he continued to pursue in advanced posi- 
tions almost uninterruptedly for fifty-one years. 

In August of 1829, Prof Sylvester Hovey was 
called from Williams College to take the place of Pro- 
fessor Abbott, resigned; and Tutor Snell was promo- 
2p 



10 

ted as his " adjunct," with the understanding still 
that he should also instruct in the languages when- 
ever his services might be needed, and " such instruc- 
tion would not interfere with the main duties of his 
ojSice." From this we see how varied his attainments 
were, and what a valuable acquisition to the college 
he was through his ability to occupy several posts as 
occasion might demand. 

In the spring of 1831, Professor Hovey went to 
Europe for the double purpose of recruiting his health 
and of purchasing additions to the Library and Philo- 
sophical apparatus. His absence left his assistant in 
full charge of the department until the summer of 
1832, when he returned. But a brief effort at lectur- 
ing convinced him of his inability to prosecute his 
work, and at the following commencement he resigned 
his office, and Mr. Snell was at once appointed to his 
place. His apprenticeship had both proved his fitness 
and enhanced his qualifications to be Master, and he 
developed into the full-blown Professor as by a natu- 
ral law. His first course of lectures was delivered 
to the then Junior class — the class of 1834 — in the 
mathematical room where he had already arranged 
the Philosophical apparatus as it arrived from Paris, 
directing in the construction of the cases, putting in 
order the articles, and testing the excellence of the 
several instruments. So great were the improve- 
ments thus made in the department that he might be 
fairly called the founder of it. 



11 

The year of his appointment to the Professorship, 
1833, was that in which our class entered college. 
We thus came under his earliest instructions. The 
impression he made on us then we remember well. 
Of a slender form, ruddy face, laughing eye and qiiick 
movement that meant business ; kindly and genial in 
his manner, ready of appreciation and sparkling in 
repartee ; his whole appearance toned down with 
something of feminine delicacy, he put all in inter- 
course with him at ease, and made himself popular 
with the students. In the Lecture Room, so far from 
appearing as a novice at his work, he displayed the 
readiness, the fullness, the accuracy, the artistic finish 
of a practiced instructor. It seemed as if he had 
been always at it. Every experiment was done to a 
nicety. Never was he more at home than when set- 
ting nature's forces at play, and exhibiting the beauty 
and exactness of their operations. They seemed, as 
it were, his familiars, put under a spell to do his bid- 
ding. And if ever they proved capricious, which was 
rarely the case, far from showing impatience, he 
would dismiss them with a playful jest that made up 
for the disappointment. Malicious students would 
sometimes say that the jests were prepared before- 
hand, and were repeated from class to class. But 
supposing they were, why, we ask, should not wit 
and wisdom be carefully wrought, and if good re- 
peated. A great mistake is it to imagine that our 
best humorists never conned in advance the good 



12 

things they uttered, or flung away a bright saying, 
simply because it pleased once. The pleasure once 
given is a reason for using it again. And it is one 
proof of our Professor's wit, that it never lost its raci- 
ness, and was entertaining to the last. 

In hearing recitations Professor Snell was sharp, 
demanding of the students clear and definite answers. 
No tricks of mystification, or dodging, or saying, 
" That is what I meant. Sir," would avail with him. 
Each student was required to state precisely what he 
pretended to know, or there was fun in store. It is 
said that the now celebrated H. W. B., so noted in 
college days for his fondness for Mathematics ! was 
on one occasion undergoing question amid perplexi- 
ties, and thereupon helped to answer in whisper from 

his friend S , who sat near. " Yes," said the 

quick-eared Professor, " that is S 's view of the 

subject ; now what is yours ? " It was of no use. 
All H. W. B. could respond was : " I wish, Sir, you 

would ask S , he knows a great deal more about 

it than I do." 

On another occasion we ourselves, strange as it 
may seem, were detected smiling over a funny letter 
which a class-mate, now a sober D. D., had slyly 
passed over to us, and with shocking abruptness up 
we were called to state what we knew of parallactic 
motion. The sudden " pull up," as Tony Weller 
would say, so confused our wits that we were disposed 
squarely " to flunk," and sit down. But we were 



18 

not to be let off so. The Professor was sure we 
knew, and he insisted on an answer. At length recol- 
lection rallied, and citing the words of the book we 
hurriedly replied : It is the apparent motion of ob- 
jects inter se, (i. e.,) among themselves, we added — 
when the laugh of the class was brought down on us 
by the encouraging comment, " Very correctly trans- 
lated. Sir." It was a lesson to attend to recitation a 
little more closely not to be forgotten. 

And so it was he managed the classes. There was 
no acid in his composition. His correction and re- 
bukes were all tempered with a genial humor, which 
allayed irritation. 

In the freedom of social intercourse, his pleasantry 
was in constant play. He was rarely at a loss for a 
reply. At times his wit crackled from him quick and 
bright, as the sparks from one of his own Leyden jars 
when well charged. A touch was enough to draw 
him out. But the shocks were never strong, — enough 
to amuse, seldom powerful enough to hurt. On one 
occasion, when criticised for his pronunciation of 
acou(ow)stics as a very uncouth (uncowth) way of 
pronouncing the word, he replied, " 0, if you take 
me on that ground, I will say that as for " acoostics," 
I do not like the soond of it, and on that accoont I 
shall not pronoonce it so ! Rumor said that when the 
Tutors — shall we name them ? — W. S. Tyler, C. Park, 
A. Bullard, and G. C. Partridge all boarded there 
about the year 1836, the home at the foot of the hill 



14 

resounded with the ring of happy laughters not in- 
dulged in at the regular Faculty meeting ; unfortu- 
nately, however, no Gurney hid in the closet has 
reported the conversations which gave them birth. 
Perhaps one of the surviving members of that coterie 
might supply the lack if called upon. We would 
like to hear some of the good things said in those 
days. 

Naturally, Professor Snell had an almost feminine 
delicacy of feeling, and the flushes on his face as they 
came and went, told the play of emotions that were 
going on within. Acts of kindness touched him to 
the quick, for he never was willing to believe himself 
as popular as he was. Very characteristic is the fol- 
lowing incident. The class of 1858 having resolved 
to surprise him with a token of regard, purchased 
some articles of silver, and made arrangements for a 
formal presentation at his home by securing his being 
sent away on a specious errand, and getting things in 
readiness against his return. As he re-entered he 
found the whole class awaiting him. Greetings over, 
the class-leader conducted him to the table where 
stood the pieces under cover, lifted the cloth, and 
made his little speech. The Professor was too much 
overcome for a reply. After a few silent moments, 
relief was happily brought by a student — one of the 
poorest in his class — who quietly stepped up and lay- 
ing his hand gravely on the Professor's shoulder said, 
" Now, Professor, you will understand how to sympa- 



15 

thize with some of us when we are called upon to re- 
cite and can't." It was enough. The " over-fraught 
heart " was tapped, and the occasion passed off 
merrily. But just think of such freedom being taken 
with President Humphrey or Professor Hitchcock ! 

Thus accessible, genial, appreciative was our Pro- 
fessor ever. An encounter with him was a refresh- 
ment. It did the alumni good to receive from him a 
warm welcome on their occasional visits to Amherst, 
and find themselves remembered. And how racy 
were his little speeches at the commencement gath- 
erings. We shall never forget the one he gave on 
the 45th anniversary of his graduation, when being 
in the chair, we congratulated the first class on all 
being present^ and thought it fitting that we should 
first of all raise our Ebenezer in commemoration of 
the happy occasion. A pretty lively stone he proved, 
full of wittiest "sermon" as he repelled insinuations 
against his day of small things, and showed by 
humorous analogies how the greatest and the best 
ever spring from the least. And what could be more 
Elian in its vein than the account he gave of himself 
in the following year which, though no doubt remem- 
bered by all, is worth repeating. "This occasion 
tells m6, as my friends are often telling me, that I 
am an old man, and I am becoming quite accustomed 
to the appellation. I suppose I ought to feel some 
infirmities, but here is just where I fail. I am not 
conscious of any infirmities, except the numerous ones 



16 

which have always attended me. It may be sup- 
posed that I am mature enough to put on spectacles; 
but I do not yet see clearly any reason for so doing. 
And as to a cane, I have had any number of canes 
presented to me. The gift I always accept, but I 
never take the hint. It is possible, however, that 
the Sophomoric weakness may yet fall upon me, and 
that I shall appear abroad with all my canes at once. 
I perform my college work with as much ease and 
interest as I ever did, and really feel some solicitude 
lest I shall not know when to resign, unless some one 
tells me." 0, needless solicitude! A nature so fresh 
could be summoned to resign only by the great 
Father himself. 

In his habits. Professor Snell was exact, punctual, 
methodical. It was a question whether he went by 
the sun, or the sun went by him. Certainly they 
were often seen in close conference, and were on the 
best of terms. If I mistake not, he made it his busi- 
ness to keep the sun's accounts ; and none was ever 
better qualified for the office. With him minutes 
ran golden as if each one was to be reckoned for. 
Yet there was no press or unseemly hurry in his 
movements. His life went like clock-work, "never 
hasting, never resting." 

Nowher a besier man than he ther n'as, 
Nor seemed he half so besy as he was. 

A rare thing was it for him to be absent from his 
place, whether in the class-room, or chapel, or faculty 



17 

meeting. Like punctilious was he in his domestic 

economy. Incomes and expenditures were strictly 

noted down, and he could tell to a dime what it cost 

him to live. Of all committed to his trust he was 

a careful steward. Obligations were by him held 

sacred, and were met with conscientious fidelity. His 

word was his bond. Yet with all this exactness he 

was liberal of his means when occasion called, as we 

ourselves can bear testimony. There was nothing 

penurious about him. And it was this combination 

of prudence with generosity which enabled him to 

accomplish so much for his department in preserving 

and increasing its apparatus on the most scanty 

allowances; and also manfully to endure the strait- 

ness of the many days of pecuniary embarrassments 

through which the college struggled. Never did a 

professor make a little go so far. In his report for 

1843, he states that " the Philosophical apparatus has 

suffered no loss or damage during the past year, and 

has been improved by the addition of several small 

but valuable articles at an expense of less than $20. 

Perhaps an honest statement of the manner in which 

my time is employed for college requires me to say 

that most of my hours for exercise are spent in a 

private shop, where I construct such articles as I feel 

the need of in giving instruction, which lie within 

the limits of my mechanical ability. I estimate that 

the sum of $20 or $25, which is annually expended 

for the department, does under this economical ar- 
3p 



18 

rangement effect an amount of repairs and improve- 
ments and additions which would in any other way 
cost the institution from $50 to |100." The private 
shop alluded to was, at first, that of Mr. David Par- 
sons, a singular man whom we well remember, the 
son of Rev. Dr. Parsons, whilom minister of the par- 
ish, a genius and wit in his way, of whose skill we 
recollect to have heard the Professor speak in high 
praise. The two were much together in the early 
time, and a rare treat it must have been to have 
watched them devisino; and contriving; to alter or 
manufacture on their scant allowance the apparatus 
which was to serve the purposes of the lecture, enliv- 
ening work with wit as they went along. Of the 
value of some of these inventions to science, we shall 
leave the Professor who follows me to speak more in 
full. All we can testify to is the great and well- 
earned pleasure he took in exhibiting his apparatus, 
thus revised and improved, to visitors. It was a pet 
he was proud of. 

A marked characteristic of Professor Snell was his 
modesty. In early life he was diffident even to shy- 
ness. This kept him back from showing what he 
really was, and restrained him from pushing into 
positions he was well qualified to fill. His chief aim 
was conscientiously to discharge the duties assigned 
him, leaving honors, and promotions, and rewards to 
come as they might. Self was absorbed in work. 
He had devoted himself to the college, and its inter- 



' 19 

ests were held paramount to personal considera- 
tions. In providing for self and family, the main 
question was not, what do I need? or what have I 
earned ? but what can the college afford ? Likewise 
in his association with others, while there was an 
honest declaration of opinion, he never so asserted 
himself as to preclude harmonious co-operation. The 
burden put upon him, after fair deliberation, he was 
ready to assume and carry as well as he could. And 
this freedom from assumption opened him to kindly 
fellowship with all classes. The students approached 
him confidingly. The people of the town liked him 
as a good neighbor. Children never held aloof from 
him in awe. For all he had a kind word, and passed 
on his way leaving the impression of a sunny nature. 
Amherst was his home. Here he rooted himself and 
shook out his silver leaves to the breeze, giving a 
quiet pleasure to all who approached him, or sat 
under his shadow. 

But beneath all this there were the reserved forces 
of a strong, self-sacrificing, resolute spirit, which came 
out into full exercise during the long trying season, 
which followed upon the great rebellion of 1837. 
How the college withered up and dropped both 
leaves and branches — and came near being cut down 
as hopelessly gone under the blighting influence of 
that hot eruption of conscience most of us have 
heard. Students fell off. Friends forsook. Friends 
failed. Debts accumulated. The treasury had not 



20 

wherewith to pay the small salaries due. Applica- 
tions for aid were refused. One measure after an- 
other proved abortive. People talked about the 
expediency of transforming the college again into an 
academy. It seemed as if Amherst must go down. 
Then it was that those who had her interests in 
charge showed the stuff they were made of, and the 
mightiness of their love. They refused to desert. 
They assumed the responsibility of carrying on the 
institution for what could be allowed them out of 
the pitiful income accruing from tuitions, and put 
their shoulders beneath the sinking fabric, strong 
and unbending as the Caryatides which of old up- 
held the temple of Diana, yet with hearts, beneath 
that stony firmness, which palpitated with keenest 
anxieties and sorrows. And among the foremost of 
these to do and endure was our Ebenezer Strong — 
proving true to his name, a veritable "stone of help" 
in the hour of Amherst's calamity. And here let me 
name the others associated with him. The noble 
President Heman Humphrey had been constrained to 
leave under the exigencies of the situation ; and there 
remained of the old set, Professors Edward Hitchcock, 
(made President,) Nathan W. Fiske, William S. Tyler, 
Charles U. Shepard, and with these was associated 
Prof. Aaron Warner, recently appointed. These are 
the men to whose unyielding firmness and heroism, 
it is due that Amherst College still exists, and that 
we its older Alumni are not left orphans. Let us 



21 

pay tHem honor due, and hold them in perpetual re- 
membrance. All now are gone to their reward, save 
two, and they, thank God, remain with us this day, 
to enjoy the happy results of that unflinching endur- 
ance. It is now forty years since the great rebellion ; 
let us celebrate it by giving three cheers to the mem- 
ory of the men that stood it through. 

And brighter days came. How they came, let the 
history of the College so ably written by one of these 
men tell. Observers beholding, their self-denial be- 
came friends. Donations were made. Professorships 
were endowed. New instructors were appointed. 
Building after building went up. Students flocked 
in. And in that glorious rising from the dust, none 
rejoiced more than Professor Snell. But what glad- 
dened his heart most of all, and do you blame him ? 
was the gift for Walker Hall. Yet, even with this, 
how sorely he was tried by the protracted delay in 
the erection of the building. For many years he had 
patiently endured with limited accommodations, in- 
convenient lecture room, and inadequate apparatus. 
Other colleges were striding ahead. He was getting 
old. And oh how he longed to put his dear College 
up with the best in his department, and have the 
pleasure of realizing his ideal before he finished his 
work. Once and again in his Reports, he pressed 
the subject on the delaying Trustees in the most re- 
spectful terms. That of 1866, he closes in the fol- 
lowing significant strain : " Of course I would not 



conceal the fact that I feel a deep personal interest in 
the question, how soon the accommodations of the 
new building can be enjoyed by the Lecturer on Nat- 
ural Philosophy ? For at my time of life I can look 
for only a few more years at the farthest, in which to 
perform the duties of my present position. Bat this 
personal consideration I can sincerely say I look upon 
as a trifle compared with the general welfare of the 
College. And it is in view of the advantage to the 
institution, and not tp myself, that I urge the speedy 
erection of the Walker building." 

At length the goal of his aspirations was reached. 
Walker Hall was dedicated October 20, 1870, and 
happy man was he as he took possession of his spa- 
cious rooms and fine cases, and apparatus added at a 
cost of $3,000. No ^'^ nunc dimittis'' does he now 
offer. In his Report of 1872, he writes : " Having 
now occupied Walker Hall two full years, I am pre- 
pared to express my entire satisfaction with the 
arrangements there provided. I am grateful to a 
kind Providence that has spared my life and health, 
and has permitted me to labor even for a period of 
two years in the convenient and pleasant quarters 
now furnished for the department under my care." 
And most heartily did all observers and listeners con- 
gratulate him on his enlargement, and wish him many 
days the enjoyment thereof. 

And live he did four years longer, retaining mar- 
velously his faculties unimpaired to the end. The 



23 

last lecture he delivered was in the last week of his 
life. 

Nor must I forget that Professor Snell's crowning 
excellence was his sincere, unfeigned piety. He did 
not say much about it, it is true. It was not in his 
nature to make a parade of anything. Indeed his 
diffidence was such that it was only after some effort 
that he could bring himself to make a profession of 
his faith at the age of 28, and then, after this, to take 
his turn in conducting College prayers. But for all 
this his piety was none the less sincere and deep. It 
pervaded his whole life, and shone out in his daily 
conduct. It brightened his home. It sweetened his 
daily intercourse. It imparted sacredness to all his 
obligations. It cheered him amid difficulties. It 
sustained him under afflictions. Twice had he been 
bereaved of children, and he bowed to the dispensa- 
tion in Christian submission. All this was but the 
fulfillment of his own petition, that " the unnum- 
bered prayers presented in his behalf by his believing 
father and mother might be answered, and that they 
niiorht find a rich reward of their faithfulness in see- 
ing him pursue the paths of wisdom, which they had 
so often pointed out to him as the ways of pleasant- 
ness and peace." Verily to him they were ways of 
pleasantness and peace. 

Was Professor Snell then a faultless man? Theo- 
retically he was not. No man is. But what his 
par.ticular faults were we have not been able to dis- 



24 

cover. We watched him when a boy of fifteen and 
over. We have asked his wife and daughters, and 
who ought to know so well as they? We have 
inquired of his associate Professors. We have ques- 
tioned the students and Alumni. We have ferreted 
among the neighbors, and we have found none will- 
ing to testify aught against him. The commenda- 
tions invariably pronounced upon him have all ended 
without a hut. If we were to draw inferences from 
what we know of his characteristic traits, we might 
conclude that he might possibly have been a little 
impatient with lazy laggards who were rarely up to 
time — a little tart upon irregularities of the heedless 
and unprincipled. We can hardly conceive of one so 
sensitive in his nature, and so exact with himself to 
be easily tolerant of traits and habits so opposite to 
his own. But we cannot recall or obtain instances 
illustrative of this. Without courting popularity it 
must be said that he was uniformly popular with all 
classes, and retained his friendships unbroken to the 
last. And now that he is gone, where are the lips 
that will pronounce aught save benedictions on his 
memory. Other men there have been, indeed, among 
us of larger dimensions, and more brilliant qualities, 
who have lifted themselves more conspicuously be- 
fore the world's gaze; but we know of none more 
inviting from the simple beauty and symmetry of 
their character, and from their perfect adaptation to 
their work. His life lies before us like one of those 



25 

sweet quiet landscapes, that now and then catch the 
eye as we sail down the placid Connecticut — where 
meadow, field and grove, grassy hill-side and playful 
rivulet combine to present a scene of cultivated 
loveliness, on which the mind broods with serenest 
satisfaction. We would not have it other than it is. 

But it is time we closed our sketch. After a long 
and almost unbroken career of active service, toward 
the end of his 74th year, and on the SGth anniversary 
of the opening exercises of the College, September 
18, 1876, Professor Snell finished his work. Premoni- 
tions of his departure were seen in fits of fainting 
which only interrupted for the time his regular duties. 
He continued to lecture up to the last week of his 
life, as Professor Tyler remarked in an obituary no- 
tice of him, " with his usual clearness and method, 
and his characteristic dexterity and success in experi- 
mental illustrations, though not with all his normal 
quickness and vigor." The last time was on Wednes- 
day, September 13. On the following Monday he 
was gone. Only an hour before he breathed his last, 
as he came out of one of his fits, he said in his usual 
pleasant vein, " I am everywhere but here ; " and to 
the suggestion that wherever he was the Savior was 
with him, he gave a pleased assent, and so took his 
leave, calm, peaceful, blessed. 

It is but fitting that I should add to my impressions 
the beautiful tribute paid Professor Snell by his almost 
life-long associate. Professor Tyler, as it appeared in 
4p 



26 

the "Amherst Student," of October, 1876, which was 
sent to us after most of the above was written, and 
fully corroborates all we have said. 

" Thus the last living human link is severed, which 
for five years more than half a century has bound to- 
gether all the years in the history of Amherst col- 
lege, and united all the graduates, all the alumni and 
all the officers of the college to one another, and to 
their Alma Mater, by their common relation to this 
oldest^son and brother. There has been no other 
such link, and there never can be another. 

" What Professor Snell has been to Amherst College, 
and what he has done for it as its first student, and 
one of its earliest tutors and professors, more than 
half a century an officer of the college, and more 
than a quarter of a century an officer of the church, 
the regulator of the calendar, of the catalogue, the 
clerk of the bell and the clerk of the weather, the 
model teacher and lecturer, the exemplar of the fac- 
ulty and the students, the guide, instructor, elder 
brother and father of us all — no son of Amherst need 
be told, for it is written in the history of the college 
and in all our memories — the memory of our hearts. 
And none need be told of the beauty of his character 
and life, for we have all seen and loved and admired 
his perfect integrity, his transparent purity and sin- 
cerity, his matchless modesty, his rare and rich vein 
of pleasantry, his gentleness tempered with firmness, 
his kindly sympathy towards all men, his loyalty to 



27 

God and his faithfulness in every duty ; and we shall 
never forget it. If there is any man in the whole 
range of our observation and experience to whom we 
should dare to apply the epithets, blameless and fault- 
less, I think we should all agree that that man was 
Professor Snell." 



Professor Esty's Address. 



PKOFESSOR SNELL AS A TEACHER AND A SCIENTIFIC 

MAN. 

In such a life as Professor Snell's there is much to 
satisfy our idea of completeness. His uninterrupted 
career of more than half a century of successful labor, 
— his long-continued influence for good, exerted upon 
more than fifty successive college generations, are 
elements of this completeness. His life was complete 
in its resources, in its happy combination of congenial 
and satisfying pursuits. "To pass our time in the 
study of the sciences," says Lord Brougham, " has in 
all ages been reckoned the most dignified and happy 
of human occupations." But Professor Snell had a 
two-fold resource. He had a love of mechanical pur- 
suits, together with an ample opportunity for its ex- 
ercise in the field of his professional work. Next to 
congenial intellectual labor, indulgence of mechanical 
skill, guided by intellect, and inspired by love, is 
most absorbing and satisfying. Professor Snell pos- 
sessed the resources of the student of science and of 



80 

the artist. In addition to this he was a teacher, and 
he had the instinctive love of a true born teacher for 
his work. But it is mainly because of his Christian 
character, ripened by experience and perfected by 
time, that we speak of his life as a completed, 
rounded life, and symbolize our thought by the sheaf 
of ripened wheat. We find on closer examination, 
these more immediate and apparent elements of com- 
pleteness are but the appropriate setting and expres- 
sion of the inner principle of his mental life. 

The primary instinct of his mind was an impulse 
to the attainment of completeness in some practical, 
tangible form- in all he did. It was the key to his 
character. It was the secret of his method. It ex- 
plains the peculiar excellence of his teaching. It 
was the basis of his intellectual tastes. It was the 
inspiration of his faithfulness. It was the life of 
that higher, though unconscious, tuition whose les- 
sons are among the most valuable acquisitions of the 
past. He had the instincts of the natural mechanic 
and artist. He loved good and genuine workman- 
ship. He loved a neat and finished product. He 
loved simplicity, harmony and beauty, — directness 
and economy of means. The unfinished, the un- 
couth, and slovenly jarred upon his artist nature as 
discord upon the soul of the musician. His eye kin- 
dled with enthusiasm over a piece of superior work- 
manship as over an intellectual achievement. His 
hand and eye were trained by skillful manipulation 



31 

in the practical mechanics of the workshop, and 
by the habit of exact and delicate experiment. Pa- 
tience and care, exactness and aptitude, are the nat- 
ural products of such a discipline. A tendency to 
the attainment of a perfect work is engendered and 
strengthened by a long-continued course in such pur- 
suits. 

But while this tendency to the attainment of an 
exacting conformity to an ideal was thus strength- 
ened by the practical discipline of the workshop, the 
influence of his intellectual studies was in entire con- 
sonance with that of his practical pursuits. What 
John Stuart Mill says of the physical sciences in gen- 
eral, applies with particular force to Natural Philoso- 
phy : " Its whole occupation consists in doing well, 
what all of us, during the whole of life, are engaged 
in doing, for the most part badly." Natural Philoso- 
phy is the product of perfected human thinking. It 
exhibits in its perfected form, the working of the 
scientific method. " It is the Principia of Newton," 
says Stanley Jevons, the logician of science, "it is 
the Principia of Newton that is the true Novum 
Organum of modern science, and not the method of 
Bacon." The central method of the Principia, as 
also of 'modern science, consists of the interaction 
between hypothesis and experiment, through deduc- 
tion. Where has hypothesis been so daring and yet 
so fruitful, where has deduction been so profound 
and subtile, and yet so sure, and experiment so 



32 

refined and ingenious as in Natural Philosophy ? The 
method of Natural Philosophy gives us the model, 
not only of scientific, but of all exact thinking. The 
habits of mind engendered by long-continued occu- 
pation with this method, we should expect would ex- 
hibit something of the peculiarities of the discipline 
by which they are formed. "We should expect a dis- 
taste for loose, indefinite, and unfounded thinking. 
We see in this method the secret of Professor Snell's 
caution, wariness, and especially what Faraday par- 
ticularly emphasizes as the effect of a study of Phys- 
ics, " good judgment, reservation of opinion, a mind 
open to conviction, resistance to self-deception, habits 
of forming clear and precise ideas, imagination under 
control, labor of thought, and humility." He was 
thus, on the practical and theoretical side of his na- 
ture, habituated to the comparison of his work with 
a high standard, with a perfect ideal, a habit of mind 
conducive on the one hand to superior attainments, 
and on the other to self depreciation. 

Both these elements, the discipline of the work- 
shop and of the study, so distinctly marked, so easily 
traced, blended generally in the way of mutual mod- 
ification and restriction ; but in this particular, in 
this stimulation of the impulse to work out a com- 
pleted product, they coincided in their effects, and 
intensified each other. The effect of this two-fold 
culture upon the primary instinct of his character to 
perfect whatever he undertook was, of necessity, a 



33 

restriction of the field of his activities in some direc- 
tions, and an extension in others. The restriction 
was mainly on the scientific side, as the extension 
was on the artistic. The practical element was the 
controlling one. In the union of the two elements 
in his character as a teacher, this was noticeably 
the case. This impulse on its practical side became, 
under the demand of teaching for expression and 
interpretation, a source of artistic power, and of an 
artistic habit of mind. 

In its most elementary form this artistic habit was 
manifest in his love of orderly arrangement, of hav- 
ing a place for everything and everything in its 
place. In his lectures he always proceeded accord- 
ing to a definite and well tested plan. He never 
assumed anything. Everything was tried, tested and 
recorded. He never trusted himself, but arranged 
and noted beforehand, the time, place, and perform- 
ance of every piece in the combination to be pro- 
duced. He was therefore seldom taken by surprise, — 
seldom failed in an experiment. In its merely me- 
chanical arrangements, each lecture proceeded with 
the smoothness and freedom of a frictionless machine. 
In his diagrams, charts and models, he exhibited an- 
other element of the artist nature, not only in his 
painstaking fidelity to truth as far as possible, but in 
the mechanical execution in the interests of neatness 
and beauty. 

It was, however, as an interpreter of scientific 
5p 



34 

truth that he exhibited in perfection those character- 
istics which I have ventured to call artistic. He 
made the interpretation of abstract truth an art. 
Here he showed inventive talent, ingenuity in the 
adaptation of means to an end, a control over the 
materials at command, and power over mechanical 
combinations, which, when exerted for the purpose of 
conveying or revealing truth, are among the higher 
elements of artistic power. " It is the office of Art," • 
says Hazlitt, " to combine general truth with individ- 
ual distinctness." Not only definitions, new terms, 
technicalities were associated with some concrete ob- 
ject, with some striking experiment, or with some 
familiar fact that gave precision and definiteness, but 
also the generalizations of science, the abstract state- 
ments of scientific hypothesis were conveyed by some 
ingenious illustration by which the imagination was 
quickened — the meaning apprehended — the princi- 
ple grasped, with all the distinctness of immediate 
vision. 

This inventive art is most clearly seen in the design 
and construction of his ingenious pieces of apparatus 
for illustrating the different varieties of wave motion. 
They are among the most successful products of a 
teacher's art. The doctrine of wave movements in 
different media is an important part of modern phys- 
ics. Deep down into this almost impenetrable rock 
the physicist has pushed the mighty instrument of 
modern analysis, and has established the fact that in 



35 

this direction lies the secret of a most important and 
recondite part of natural phenomena. The treasures 
gathered in this search are among the most brilliant 
gems in the crown of analytic genius. It is of im- 
portance that in a course of education which ought 
to involve at least an outline of what mind has done 
with the intractable mysteries which surround it, it 
is of importance that the student should have a clear 
conception of the hypothesis that unlocks so many 
secrets. This is successfully accomplished in the 
pieces of apparatus to which I have referred. The 
conceptions that lie hidden in the analytic formulae 
of Cauchy and Fresnel are here brought to light in a 
material form, and are made real and vivid, so that 
one of the most difficult, as it is one of the most im- 
portant generalizations of science, is made by this 
art one of the most clearly apprehended theories of 
scientific thought. 

This impulse to work out a completed result in the 
simplest and most economical way exhibited itself in 
the daily drill of the recitation room. It made him 
seem sometimes exacting and particular. It was not 
easy to satisfy a man who combined in himself the 
logical rigor of mathematics, with the artistic sense of 
the perfect. Slipshod work, vague notions, hazy gen- 
eralizations, superfluous and lumbering circumlocu- 
tions were the special abhorrence of this master 
workman. It was, therefore, one of his peculiar ex- 
cellencies as a teacher that he held before the mind 



36 

of the student uniformly and persistently the exact 
and exacting standard of precise thinking. For this 
art the methods of Physics furnish the model, and 
Professor Snell was so thoroughly imbued with their 
spirit that he brought them to bear in full force upon 
the mind of the pupil. The student was sure to get 
the full benefit of what Dr. Whewell puts forth as 
the crowning excellence of the English University 
training — what he designates as " practical teach- 
ing/' leading the pupil to clear ideas of fundamental 
truth, and above all, to a practice in the deductions to 
be made from them. 

The revision of Professor Olmstead's text books in 
Natural Philosophy and Astronomy was carried out 
with a view to this kind of teaching. They are clear, 
logical, carefully divested of all redundancy, and ex- 
pressed with precision and care. 

The impulse to the attainment of a finished product 
manifested itself in his intellectual tastes. It led to 
the study of truth in its detailed and individual rela- 
tions and applications. It was the Art of mathemat- 
ics, rather than the Science, which he loved. His favo- 
rite branch of mathematics was Descriptive Geome- 
try. He preferred graphical methods to deductive 
analysis. He loved the special forms, the isolated 
and elegant constructions, the simple and individual 
methods of the Greek geometry rather than the 
more general and subtile methods of modern analysis. 
Harmony and simplicity of relation in individual 



37 

forms were to him elements of beauty in mathemati- 
cal truth as they were to the old masters of Geome- 
try. We have an illustration of this in his published 
propositions relating to the sphere, and one of the cir- 
cumscribed cones, whose properties fairly rival those 
of the famous sphere and cylinder of Archimedes, 
In this way his artistic tendencies modified and 
shaped his scientific tastes. They prescribed the form 
under which he looked upon scientific truth. And 
thus we find in the form of his art the indications of 
the limits imposed upon his science. Whatever the 
hand could trace, whatever the eye could see, what- 
ever mechanical skill could reproduce or embody, 
formed the material of his scientific thinking. Ab- 
straction and generalization had little interest for him 
except in so far as they admitted of concrete embodi- 
ment, of individual and special realization. It was 
to this individual, practical method of viewing truth 
that he owed his great success as a teacher and in- 
terpreter of science. It was the basis of his art of 
interpretation. It was the key by which he gained 
access to many a mind otherwise hopelessly closed to 
the appeals of exact science. 

The counterpart of this method is that of the 
modern analytic treatment of Physics which lies out- 
side the province of general college instruction. The 
secret of its power is in the fusion of exact experi- 
ment with the profound deductions of modern mathe- 
matics. Within its limits it realizes the true concep- 



38 

tion of a Natural Philosophy. It is an organic system 
of thought underlying the phenomena of Nature. It 
is an evolution of thought through the sure though 
subtile transformations of the analyst from the funda- 
mental principle up to its countless concrete realiza- 
tions. In the mystic symbols of its written language 
we read the history of universal movement as the 
mysterious ebb and flow of that energy it has brought 
to light. And this method also has its art which 
does not depend on the eye. In contrast to the plas- 
tic art of the special method I may call it the poetry 
or the music of science, because like its analogue in 
esthetics, it appeals to the spirit without the interven- 
tion of material forms. Its appeal to the enthusiasm 
of its votaries is through the grandeur of its combi- 
nations, not only in their majestic sweep through 
space and time, but in the unity and harmony of 
their all-embracing comprehension. 

That science has such an esthetic province, is con- 
trary to the great authority of Goethe, who says : " the 
antipodes of poetry is not prose but science." But Sir 
William Rowan Hamilton, the greatest analyst of the 
last half century, the peer of Newton and La Place, 
as well as universal genius, said : " The ' Mecanique' 
of Lagrange is a poem." The poet Wordsworth, the 
friend of Hamilton, said of Hamilton's own achieve- 
ments of constructive imagination in the forms of 
pure analysis, that they entitled him to admission 
within the charmed circle of poets. One of the most 



39 

eminent of living mathematicians says of a particular 
development of modern analysis : " It is the music 
of reason." We may also recall here Plato's pro- 
found definition of beauty as " the splendor of the 
true." 

The fundamental law of Prof. Snell's mental life 
was to attain the goal of a tangible product complete 
in all its details. It determined the direction of his 
scientific thinking. It manifested itself in his practi- 
cal nature — in his practical culture, and in his intel- 
lectual tastes. The instinctive love of the perfect 
was also the basis of his esthetic tastes, and of his 
religious aspirations. All his susceptibilities were 
tuned in harmony with the benign influences of the 
true, the beautiful, and the good. He was a man 

" Feelingly alive 
"To each fine impulse, with quick disgust 
" From things deformed, or disarranged, or gross " 

To his associates, co-laborers and pupils, he mani- 
fested this instinct in the scrupulous attachment to 
principle, in the fidelity to truth which characterize 
the science he loved. In his straight and even 
course — in his untiring faithfulness to duty, he em- 
bodied the very spirit of truth and duty. These 
traits were ever tempered by his geniality, kindness 
and simple-heartedness. 

He loved a completed work. In all these long 
years of faithful service, there was an unseen artist 
moulding his character. A master-workman, whose 



40 

nature it is also to do all things well. This artist has 
finished his work. He has taken it hence. But it 
lives in our memories as an untarnished Christian 
life. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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